"Webbiquity" is about being everywhere online when and where buyers are looking for what you sell. It's what I help B2B clients achieve through a coordinated strategy of SEO, search marketing, social media, brand management, content marketing, and influencer relations, supported by the right marketing technology.

Though social media marketing has become ubiquitous, most companies and brands still struggle to achieve their desired results. Or to accurately measure their results. Or to set the right goals to begin with.

Those are among the conclusions it’s fair to draw from the collection of social media marketing facts and statistics below. Eights years after social media marketing became a trending topic, marketers still struggle with tactics and metrics.

Image credit: Buffer

In fairness, part of this is due to the difficulty of hitting a moving target. As consumer and business buyer use of social media has matured and become more sophisticated, their expectations of brands in social media have evolved as well.

And ongoing changes by Facebook and other social networks that result in lower organic reach render many of yesterday’s effective marketing tactics far less useful today.

Here are five key takeaways from the research below.

Social media needs to be part of an integrated strategy. 90% of companies now use social media for business—yet most aren’t certain it adds value to the bottom line, and more than 60% have trouble assessing its impact or turning metrics in actionable ideas. Those who can measure results directly have discovered social media is far less effective at driving direct purchases than email or search advertising.

The answer isn’t to give up on social media, but to recognize it’s not great for direct response. Social media marketing is valuable, however, for enhancing brand presence and image online, and plays a key role in an overall web presence optimization strategy.

Advertising needs to be part of social media strategy. As noted below, organic reach is now less than 2%. It’s never been great on Twitter, and recent changes LinkedIn made to Groups functionality reduces their value.

Many marketers get this: spending on social network advertising is expected to double in the next five years. The good news: social ads are highly targetable and (at least for now) relatively affordable.

Social is for customer service. Engaging current customers on social media is much more common that engaging prospects. 84% of marketers believe social media can enhance existing customer relationships. Nearly two-thirds of social media users expect brands to offer customer service via social networks. And your prospective buyers—they are watching.

Influencer marketing? Think small. Pursuing the industry influencers with the largest follower counts may not be the best strategy. They are overwhelmed with brand pitches. Meanwhile, 91% of brand/company mentions on social networks come from people with fewer than 500 followers—and 94% of those mentions are positive.

Your best influencers are often your own employees (but train them). Your customers will share your content too—but only if it’s the kind of content that meets their idea research needs, not just marketing fluff.

Say it with images. It’s been said “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and nowhere is that more true, apparently, than in social media. Followers value images, videos, and case studies as the most valued content from brands on social media. Yet 58% of marketers say written content is their most important form of social content; just 19% say that of original visual content. Clearly a disconnect (and therefore an opportunity).

Find these and more actionable takeaways in this collection of three dozen social media marketing stats and facts.

Stats and Facts About Social Media Strategy and Tactics

1. 90% of companies now use social media for business purposes – up from 60% in 2013. (iMedia Connection)

2. But social media is not effective at directly driving purchases — it accounts for just 1% of e-commerce sales, compared to 16% for email and 17% for CPC. (Experience: The Blog)

3. The top eight social networks collectively now drive more than 30% of overall traffic to websites. (iMedia Connection)

4. Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest drive the most social media referral traffic back to websites. But YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn drive the most engaged traffic. (Buffer)

5. Other than the nonprofit/education sector, retail & ecommerce have the highest level of social media engagement (people love their fashion and food brands), followed by manufacturing. (MarketingSherpa)

6. The real estate industry has (by far) the lowest level of engagement (one “share” for every 19 social posts), followed by marketing services and software/tech. (MarketingSherpa)

7. Advertisers are expected to spend $12.3 billion on social marketing in 2015. By 2020, it’s projected brands will spend a whopping $27 billion on social media. (iMedia Connection)

8. Advertising now needs to be part of social media strategy. Organic reach for top brands is less than 2% on Facebook. (Experience: The Blog)

9. 62% of marketers say designing an overall social media strategy is the biggest challenge their companies face with social media. (eMarketer)

10. Rethink “influencer” marketing? 91% of brand/company mentions on social networks come from people with fewer than 500 followers. And 94% of those mentions are positive. (Buffer)

11. Then again, your best “influencers” may be your own employees. 50% of employees share about their company on social media (without any prompting). (iMedia Connection)

12. But – some training and guidance are needed. Just 41% of U.S. employees say they know what their company stands for and what makes its brand different from competitors’ brands. (iMedia Connection)

13. Want to hold on to your company’s hard-earned social media following? Put your customers’ needs an interest first. 21% of consumers say they unfollow brands that post repetitive or boring content. 19% say they would unfollow a brand on Facebook if the brand posted too often – more than six times a day. (SocialTimes)

14. 75% of B2B buyers want brands to furnish substantive content that helps them to research business ideas, but 93% of brands focus their content on “marketing” their own products and services. (MarketingCharts)

15. Finally, remember that not everyone is on social media; more than 50% of internet users either don’t use any social networks or use only one. (iMediaConnection)

Stats and Facts About Social Metrics and Measurement

16. Just 38% of marketers strongly agree that analyzing social media engagement data can help improve their bottom line. About half “somewhat agree,” and 15% don’t think analyzing social media matters at all to the bottom line. (eMarketer)

17. Two-thirds of marketers say “assessing the effectiveness of social media activities” is the biggest challenge with social media their companies face. 61% say turning social media data into actionable plans is a top challenge. (eMarketer)

18. 44% of companies still don’t measuring social’s value in their organizations. (iMediaConnection)

Social Content Stats and Facts

19. 58% of marketers say original written content is their most important form of social content. 19% say the same about original visual content (e.g., infographics). 10% say curation of others’ content (like this post) is most important. (Buffer)

20. From the customer side, the three brand social media activities that matter most to followers are new content in posts, content that is relevant to the brand, and engagement with followers. (SocialTimes)

21. Followers value images, videos, and customer reviews from brands most highly on social media. They place the least value on white papers and ebooks. (SocialTimes)

22. Posts with videos attract three times as many inbound links as plain text. (iMedia Connection)

Stats About Social Media Post Timing

23. The best time of the day for generating retweets is between 9:00 p.m. and midnight eastern time in the U.S. Late afternoon (between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. ET) is also good. (Buffer)

24. Friday is the best day of the week for generating engagement on Facebook. And use photos: 87% of all Facebook page interactions happen on photo posts. (Buffer)

25. Thursday is the best day of the week for engagement with fashion image on Pinterest. Tuesday is the best day for technology pins. (Buffer)

Social Customer Service Stats and Facts

27. One in three social media users prefer to reach out to a brand on social media for customer service, and 63% expect companies to offer customer service on social media. 75% of consumers using social media expect to hear from customer service in an hour or less. (Cognizant)

28. 25% of consumers who complain about products on Facebook and Twitter expect a response to their gripes within one hour. (iMediaConnection)

29. 53% of people who tweet at a brand expect a response within one hour. That figure rises to 72% for those with a complaint. Just 14% anticipate a response will take a full day or longer. (Buffer)

30. However–just 8% of people say they will unfollow a brand on Twitter due to lack of engagement (slow or no response to comments). (SocialTimes)

Facebook Facts and Stats

31. Is Facebook losing its cool? More than 11 million young people have abandoned Facebook since 2011. (iMediaConnection)

32. But Facebook remains the dominant social network. 59% of users access Facebook two or more times a day — which is two-thirds more than Snapchat or Twitter and 1000% more than Pinterest. (Experience: The Blog)

33. Consumers expect brands to be present on at least three different social networks, and 80% expect brands to be present on Facebook. (Experience: The Blog)

Other Social Networking Facts and Stats

34. The nonprofit/education industry averages (by far) the most social interactions per post on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and LinkedIn — even though they likely have the smallest budgets and the least resources to dedicate to social media marketing. (MarketingSherpa)

Twitter isn’t just for the birds anymore. According to recent social media research, Twitter now has more than 165 million users, and is attracting nearly a million new users each day. Twitterers collectively post a billion tweets every three days. 62% of the Fortune 500 companies have at least one Twitter account, and the average Fortune 100 firm maintains 10 separate Twitter handles to support different product lines, divisions, functional areas and geographic regions.

How can you stand out among all the chirping, build your Twitter presence, grow your following, and get your content promoted?

Find the answers to those and many more questions here in more than two dozen of the best Twitter how-to guides, resources, tools and reviews of 2012 so far.

Twitter Tips for Newbies

Catherine Lockey helpfully walks new Twitterers through the process of getting started and building a following on Twitter, from opening an account and creating lists through DMs, retweets, hashtags, post frequency, following back and more.

Writing that “Twitter provides an opportunity to mix structure and spontaneity in your business communication,” Brad Shorr offers guidance on scheduling tweets without going overboard on automation, from picking the right scheduling platform to categorizing the content you want to tweet to using repetition (carefully).

How to Grow Your Twitter Following

To grow a relevant and productive following on Twitter, Rich Brooks recommends avoiding shady tactics and shows how to do it right, starting with creating a strong profile (including your real face, detailed bio and physical location) and using third-party tools and directories to find interesting people to follow, and progressing through promoting your Twitter account through other channels (your website, email signature, etc.).

Contending that “it doesn’t take a big team and millions of dollars to get attention on Twitter,” John Manoogian III recommends emulating 10 strategies used by big brands, such as polishing your image: “Customize your background with something that fits you. Use a large image or a tasteful pattern. Check out Themeleon or Pixelgirl Presents for ideas.” Also on his list: staying positive. “Big brands typically emphasize positive things and never go on a stream of consciousness rant. When necessary, present thoughtful criticism but keep it professional.”

WTF? Twitter Abbreviations

If you’ve spend any time on Twitter you know what an RT is, and you’ve perhaps responded to an amusing one with LOL or even LMAO, but are you familiar with MT, OH, OMW, SMH and HtH? If not, check out this big list of Twitter abbreviations from Tammy Kahn Fennell.

Want even more Twitter shorthand? Bliss Hanlin provides a list of about 140 (how appropriate) examples of Twitter shorthand ranging from the obscure (CX = correction) to the borrowed-from-the-military (SNAFU, FUBAR) to common hastags (#FF for follow Friday).

Tips for Twitter Brand Pages

David Clarke explains four ways that businesses can capitalize on Twitter brand pages, including enhanced customization, “turning Twitter into a more sustainable channel of its own. It’s easier to promote hashtags, Twitter chats and special promotions specific to the brand.”

Mart Prööm explains half a dozen things companies can do with Twitter brand pages, such as using calls to action and promoting limited time offers, and includes 12 examples of famous brand pages including Disney Pixar, Audi, Pepsi and Red Bull.

Jon Elvekrog details “four concrete strategies to use social advertising to deepen your brand impact on Twitter” for brands, among them getting your content “in front of connected fans. These Twitter users are active sharers — spreading ideas, offers, and messages among their own followers and people aligned with their interest graph. If you get your paid campaign in front of influencers, they’ll spread your messages for you — and bring them to many more people than you originally targeted.”

Noting that “first impressions matter. So if you’re trying to build a remarkable social media presence, you can bet that the look and feel of your brand pages in social media will make an impression on new visitors who know nothing or little about you,” Pamela Vaughan showcases examples of brand pages that visually capture the reader’s attention including Spotify, Target and Zipcar.

General Twitter Guides, Tips & Tactics

According to research cited by Heidi Cohen, “the most positively received tweets are asking your followers questions, sharing useful information, and letting people know you’ve just created new content…By contrast, the least liked tweets are those that let the world know what you’re doing and broad greetings with no added information.” Among her top 10 tips for building your Twitter brand: dress your Twitter profile for success, offer meaty Twitter content, and give digital shoutouts to colleagues and others.

Noting that’s it’s getting tougher to stand out on Twitter now than it was in the less-crowded early days of the platform, Lisa Buyer provides several tips for brands and individuals, such as “keeping it real” (showing personality as well as business content), optimizing your profile (with specific best practices), and using hashtags carefully.

Shirley Williams creatively offers 26 Twitter tips alphabetically, from A (“Audience – Followers that connect with you because they believe you do interesting things and/or have interesting things to say”) to Z (“Zed Carpet – …Listerious is a great site to get acquainted with the Who’s who of Twitter by all kinds of categories”).

Do you wonder how your Twitter presence looks to others? Kevin Jorgensen recommends using TwitCleaner (a recommendation I strongly endorse) to check your own Twitter profile for sins like excessively retweeting, too many links, too much self-promotion, too much use of automation and other sins. Then he provides several tips for improvement such as participating in Tweet chats and actually conversing with people.

Rachel Thompson offers 10 reasons for using Twitter lists, such as that you can use them to categorize up to 10,000 followers, they can help increase your Klout score, and “Lists are a perfect way to attract followers to your stream. People are flattered you’ve added them to a list. It means you care enough to take that extra step (which takes seconds). It’s like you invited them to an exclusive party.”

Liz Strauss explains the benefits of curating content on Twitter and how to do it well, closing with “The ROI of curating content on twitter is the influence gained from incrementally staying in sync with the tools and the culture while still listening.”

Wondering what type of information, timing or tactics will garner the most retweets? Dan Zarella shares half a dozen research-based tips for maximizing pass-along on Twitter, including “Say Something New. When I compared the ‘commonness’ of certain words in retweets versus the ‘commonness’ of words contained in a random sampling of non-retweeted tweets, I found that retweets tend to contain much rarer words. People don’t want to retweet the same things that everyone else is saying, they want their tweets to stand out!”

If you’re ready to get your geek on, this post from Ethan Lyon presents a tool and instructions for finding blog guest posting opportunities via Twitter. The tool pulls an RSS feed into “Google Docs, finds all of the t.co URLs, enlarges them, eliminates duplicates based on domain, and presents them in a nice package.” For the slightly less ambitious or technical, try Blogger LinkUp.

Neal Schaffer serves up brief reviews of the top tools for tweeting. Not surprisingly, HootSuite, Tweetdeck, and Twitter itself top the list. I would have expected Buffer to show up a bit higher than #13, though as Neal notes, it’s not strictly speaking a Twitter client but rather “a perfect complement to help you schedule your posting on Twitter.”

The ebullient Peg Fitzpatrick reviews a dozen top Twitter tools for various functions, including Tweepi for cleaning up your Twitter following with following/unfollowing help, Formulists for organizing and managing your community through smart Twitter lists, and Twitalyzer for analyzing the Twitter influence of anyone on Twitter.

Tom Chu offers brief reviews of five Twitter analytics tools including The Archivist (“This tool works in just the way it sounds. You download the desktop app and it archives search results for you to go through later. The search will find as many results as possible, and then you poll those results without you having to monitor it”), Twitter Counter and What The Hashtag.

Harry Hoover recommends using SocialBro to create word clouds revealing the terms that your friends and followers tweet about most frequently. “You might discover new topics with which to engage your friends and followers. Further, you can drill down by tags to find out specifically which friends or followers are talking about that word.” You can also use TweetCloud to see which terms you use most often.

More Twitter Tools

Per the website, Itweetlive’s “Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) search engine uses advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) and clustering tools to gather similar status updates, provide response suggestions based on real-time Twitter analytics, and measure engagement levels. In this way, we build a smart conversational tree that actually suggests the best statistical responses for status updates received in the future.” Basically, it lets you use statistical rules to talk “personally” to many people at once. Interesting concept.

A slick little low-cost tool that enables you to store up to 25 different search phrases for Twitter, identify potential followers / people to follow based on those searches, manage your follow/unfollow activity, and direct message any or all followers (up to Twitter’s daily limits).

A free or low-cost Twitter management tool that provides Twitter use statistics, weekly email digests, scheduled tweeting, conversation tracking, sorting of friends and followers, and an activity feed. Paid versions add features like bit.ly integration and the ability to manage up to 60 Twitter accounts.

One Final Twitter Stat

Andres Silvaa shares an infographic from Klout which shows the expected half-life of a tweet based on the tweeter’s Klout score. For users with Klout scores under 40, activity tends to die off after 25 minutes and a handful of retweets, while those with scores of 75 and above can expect hundreds of retweets over three to six hours.